TALLAHASSEE—Adam Hirsch, a leading authority on wills and trusts, has been named the William and Catherine VanDercreek Professor of Law at The Florida State University College of Law. 

The professorship is a collaborative effort of the VanDercreeks along with friends and former students of Bill VanDercreek. It was created to allow the law school to recruit or retain an exceptionally productive legal scholar. 

Professor Hirsch teaches Bankruptcy Policy Seminar, Creditor's Rights, Estate Planning, Gratuitous Transfers, and American Legal History. He has served as the Roger Traynor Fellow at Hastings College of Law, and he is an Academic Fellow of the American College of Trust and Estate Counsel. 

“Bill VanDercreek has been a friend and mentor since the day I arrived at the College of Law,” Professor Hirsch said. “I am honored to accept this professorship.” 

Professor Hirsch received his law degree in 1982 and a Ph.D. in history in 1987 from Yale University, where his doctoral dissertation received the George Washington Egleston Prize for the best dissertation in American history. He expanded this work into a book, The Rise of the Penitentiary: Prisons & Punishment in Early America (Yale University Press, 1992). 

Over the past two years, Professor Hirsch worked as a consultant to the subcommittee of the Real Property Probate and Trust Section of The Florida Bar that drafted a comprehensive revision to Florida’s statute covering disclaimers of inheritances. The Florida Legislature recently enacted the statute, and it awaits the governor’s signature. Most of Professor Hirsch’s scholarship over the past 15 years has focused on wills, trusts and estates, and jurisprudence. 

Bill VanDercreek taught civil procedure and complex litigation courses at the College of Law from 1968 until his retirement in 1993. He was the Moot Court advisor for twenty-five years and now is professor emeritus.